---
In the middle of nowhere in the forest:-
They ran until their legs failed them.
No path, no plan. Just motion. Just fear.
Elen and Leya—two children carved out of bruises and ash—stumbled through a wilderness that did not care.
The ground sucked at their feet, wet and cold. Thorned branches scraped their arms, painting them red, but they didn't stop.
They couldn't.
They ran—To survive. To leave the place and everything behind.
Their feet were swollen, slippers torn, providing not an ounce of comfort anymore.
They saw a small cave ahead and as the surrounding grew colder and silent , they felt their legs giving up.
At last, they collapsed into a hollow cave between moss-covered stones.
Small.
Not safety. Just stillness.
They didn't know how far they'd come. Maybe far enough. Maybe not.
They knew nothing, not about the forest, not about monster. Nothing.
They had escaped, the monster didn't chased them.
Maybe the monsters hadn't cared enough to chase them. Or maybe they had simply been fast. Lucky.
But luck is just a word. Survival is a decision.
And they had survived.
By will not by fate, or so they thought.
They were safe. They were together.
And that was all that mattered.
----
Elen and leya sat inside the cave, it was cold yet they felt warm.
They sat still for a long time, breathing heavily. Both of their chests going up and down— too fast, too rough.
Elen looked towards Leya and rubbed their hands together, they made eye contact but said nothing or...maybe a lot of things were spoken without speaking.
Leya took out a small cloth wrapped around something. Wrinkled.
Their only food—two broken cookies, were wrapped in that cloth. Crumbling. Stolen. Sacred.
They didn't fight over them. They never had to.
Because they were mirrors.
Because they were born of the same scar.
Because the wound that created them had split into two—never healed, only shaped.
One cookie each. No words. Only silence.
And in that silence, they waited for night to fall.
They didn't know what tomorrow would be.
But maybe the sun would lend them another breath.
Maybe that would be enough.
In the deep forest, hunger was easier than fear.
---
The next morning —
At last, the sun.
But with it—him.
A man. A stranger.
Too clean for the woods. Too kind for the world. His voice soaked in honey and sunshine.
"Ah… what are you two doing out here?"
Soft words. Gentle smile.
It should have been a warning.
But when no one has ever been kind to you, even lies sound like lullabies.
Elen's eyes narrowed. Leya stepped back, fingers curling around a stone.
Stranger. Dangerous. Too smooth.
But he crouched down, pulled out a cookie wrapped in cloth. "You must be starving. It's okay. I won't hurt you."
They knew better.
But hope—when it's never been fed—devours anything sweet.
So they took it.
A mistake. They knew it the moment the warmth hit their tongues.
Leya's hand trembled. Elen lunged, ramming his shoulder into the man's chest. Leya swung a branch.
But they were already slipping.
Vision blurring. Limbs failing. A soft buzz crawling up their spines. Paralysis blooming like poisoned flowers.
Their thoughts overlapped in the silence.
Why us?
But no one answered.
Only darkness came.
---
Later — somewhere below the world —
They awoke to rusted iron and rot.
A basement—but not a place. A grave.
The air stank of old blood, sweat, and something worse—something sour and burnt, like dreams boiled alive.
Bodies.
Children.
Small. Twisted.
Some had bones showing. Others were halfway eaten by time.
Hair clung to the floors like dust. Fingers like broken branches. Teeth scattered like spilled coins.
Failed experiments.
And now, Elen and Leya were just the next batch.
Not for science. Not for salvation. Not for war.
No meaning. No God. Just cruelty given a face.
Sometimes, evil doesn't lie to itself. Sometimes, it smiles.
When a person no longer pretends there's a reason behind what they do—there is only rot left inside.
And rot doesn't think. It consumes.
Elen and Leya were young. But they understood.
Wisdom isn't earned by age.
Sometimes, it's burned into you.
---
Chains on their ankles. Darkness in their mouths.
They couldn't scream.
No one would hear them.
But their eyes—
Their eyes still burned.
Then—
THUD!
The door slammed open.
They shrank back, instinct pressing them against bone and wall.
But their gazes did not drop.
Fear lives in the throat.
But will—it lives in the eyes.
The man entered. The same smile.
But now, no honey. Only glass.
"Perfect," he whispered, stepping toward them with a syringe glowing faintly blue.
"I wonder… how long it'll take."
---
{The Experiment}
Strapped to the table.
Needles. Metal. Screams swallowed by stone walls.
"We're going to wake something inside you," the man whispered, almost lovingly.
He smiled, gentle and slow.
"It's something new," he murmured, to no one. "Something that listens. It reacts to hatred. To the world's disgust. You'll be fine… until they start hating you."
He laughed softly. "Let's see what monsters bloom when the world calls you one."
The chains held tight. The children didn't cry.
They just watched him.
Not pleading. Not praying.
But they heard the sound of liquid dripping.
And then—
Injection.
Fire raced through their veins. Not pain. Not heat.
Awakening.
The world flickered.
Shapes crawled on the ceiling.
A name clawed its way into Elen's and Leya's mind—something not human, something he had never heard, but felt like it had always waited for him.
Their chains rattled.
But they knew,
They knew that someday, they would walk out of this place.
And when they did—
The world wouldn't be ready for what grew inside them.
The room was silenced and then...
Creakkk.....
The door creaked open again.
Someone stepped inside.
But it wasn't the man.
---